Stuck with time frozen in your Minecraft world? Day/night cycles stopped, sun frozen in place? You can fix it with one simple command. Here’s how to restart time using the doDaylightCycle gamerule.
What You Need
To run game commands in Minecraft, you need cheats enabled in your world. If you haven’t turned cheats on yet, you’ll need to do that first. Once cheats are active, you can run any command in the chat.
The Command to Restart Time
The command is simple:
/gamerule doDaylightCycle trueRun this and time starts advancing again. Day/night cycles return. The sun moves, the moon rises, everything works like normal.
How to Use It (Step by Step)
1. Open Chat
Open the chat window. The key changes depending on what you’re playing:
- Java (PC/Mac): Press T
- Windows 10/11: Press T
- Pocket Edition: Tap the chat button at the top
- Xbox One: Press right on D-Pad
- PS4: Press right on D-Pad
- Nintendo Switch: Press right arrow
- Education Edition: Press T
2. Type and Run the Command
Type this exactly:
/gamerule doDaylightCycle truePress Enter. The chat will show “Game rule doDaylightCycle has been updated to true”. That’s it. Time’s running again.
Stop Time When You Need It
Want to freeze time again? Use the same command with false:
/gamerule doDaylightCycle falseThis pauses day/night cycles but keeps everything else normal. Useful if you’re building and don’t want lighting to change.
Check Your Current Time Setting
Not sure if time is running? Check the current value with:
/gamerule doDaylightCycleChat will show either doDaylightCycle = true (time advancing) or doDaylightCycle = false (time frozen).
Other Time Commands You Might Want
If you want to mess with time in other ways, these commands do different things:
- Set time to day, night, sunrise, noon, sunset, or midnight
- Freeze time with AlwaysDay or DayLock
- Query the current time or add time manually
Each one is useful for different situations, but doDaylightCycle is the main one for restarting normal day/night cycles.